Before we knew you, we never really understood true love, the deep, often terrifying love that appeared the first moment we laid eyes on you. Our hearts would never be the same.

We soon knew joy, but we also experienced staggering fear. The world is a scary place. We wanted to protect you from the trolls that lurked under every bridge, but quickly learned we couldn’t smash every monster, and it broke our mother hearts bit by bit.

It is our fate. We were meant to hold your hands and sing you songs and rock you to sleep. We were meant to worry and fret when you stepped out into the world. We were meant to love you.

The secret isn’t really a secret. We do the best we can. We falter, doubt, and make missteps, but our hearts are full of you, our babies.

We carry your hearts in our hearts. It is “the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life.” Our love is a big, fierce, mountain of a Sequoia that survives through brush fires and hurricane winds. It flows through our bloodstream. It gurgles in our soul. It is our pulse. It is our song.